SECOND GOLD FOR LENNY . . . . . . BUT IS ANYONE WATCHING THE GAMES ON TV?

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Staff Writer

NBC's Olympics ratings have gone down under.

The network's coverage of the Sydney Games is on pace to be the lowest-rated Summer Games ever. Tape delays, no great Olympic heroes or villains yet and, viewers say, an overemphasis on feature stories and a handful of events at the expense of others have helped drive the ratings down.

``People have already heard the scores on the news, Internet or some other station,'' said Jarrett Stoffel, 24, during lunch in Woodland Hills on Thursday.

Through Wednesday, Day 6 of the Games, NBC had a cumulative rating of 14.6, off 36 percent from the 1996 Atlanta Games, 20 percent lower than the 1992 Barcelona Games and off 13 percent from the 1988 Seoul Summer Games.

It is the lowest-rated Olympics, Summer or Winter, since the 1960s.

Wednesday night's 14.6 rating was 6 percent lower than the night before, despite American swimmer Misty Hyman's upset of Australia's ``Madame Butterfly,'' Susie O'Neill, in the 200-meter butterfly.

Each rating point represents just over 1 million TV households.

So far, the ratings through Wednesday are 9 percent below the 16.1 minimum national rating the network guaranteed to advertisers. That forced NBC on Wednesday to begin showing an average of two extra commercials every hour to make up for the shortfall to advertisers who paid up to $600,000 for a 30-second spot in prime time.

Some viewers said disappointing performances by American teams such as gymnastics and women's softball have given them little to get fired up about, whether they heard about the results before they were broadcast or not.

``Even the parts I've watched, they didn't do that good,'' said X. Woods, 53, of Van Nuys as she got coffee in Woodland Hills. ``I don't know what it is this year. Maybe it's the hours it's on. I usually fall asleep waiting for what I want to see to come on.''

NBC said it has attracted more than 60 million unique viewers to at least some of its coverage on each night between Sunday and Wednesday.

Its ratings have also been higher - exceeding the 16.1 share set for advertisers - each night in the prime-time hours of 8 to 11 p.m., officials said.

The nightly telecast runs from 7 p.m. to midnight, a five-hour block that is unprecedented in the history of televising the Olympics, the network said. Low viewership in the first and last hour were blamed for dragging the average nightly ratings down.

The highest rated night so far has been Friday's opening ceremonies, which drew a 16.1 rating for the five-hour telecast.

The network plans to show 441 hours over 17 consecutive days.

``Being halfway around the world presents quite a challenge,'' said Cameron Blanchard, a spokeswoman for NBC Sports. ``There isn't another event out there that can pull in these kinds of numbers. A hundred-forty-million viewers over six days is nothing to be ashamed of.''

All of the action shown in the U.S., on the NBC network and its affiliated cable stations MSNBC and CNBC, is tape-delayed by up to 20 hours, a decision the network made early on because marquee events wouldn't start on the West Coast until well after midnight.

MSNBC's weekend coverage of U.S. competition in soccer, softball, baseball and other matches pulled a 1 rating, up 150 percent over normal ratings for that period. CNBC posted similar gains.

Perhaps the biggest winner is the network's Internet site, NBCOlympics.com, which was ranked the top site for Olympics information, according to Nielsen NetRatings. Traffic on the site has shot up 300 percent since the Games began, compared with the same period the week before.

To some viewers, NBC's quest to go behind the scenes by telling the athletes' life stories, setting the stage for even more memorable wins or losses, has backfired.

``Too much human interest; that grates on my nerves,'' said Tom Erickson, a 46-year-old project manager from Simi Valley. ``I'd rather see the athletes compete.''

So, too, would Ron Obispo, a 52-year-old accountant from West Hills who, like Erickson, spent the lunch hour Thursday playing pool at the Yankee Doodles sports bar in Woodland Hills.

``It's better live than delayed,'' said Obispo, as he watched snippets of the taped-delayed volleyball match between the U.S. women's team and the Italians. ``When you go to another channel, you hear who won. That's no fun.''

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, chart

Photo:

(1 -- color) Despite Studio City's Lenny Krayzelburg setting an Olympic record Thursday in the 200-meter backstroke for his second gold medal, NBC's ratings have been anything but stellar.

Doug Mills/Associated Press

(2) Jon Keating of Simi Valley shoots pool Thursday at Yankee Doodles in Woodland Hills, almost ignoring the Olympics.

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Staff Photographer

Chart: RATINGS DOWN UNDER

SOURCES: NBC; Nielsen Media Research

Associated Press